Jackson Township

Location: east of CR 700W, north of CR 500N

Family plot destroyed; unknown burials

    Archives at the Madison County Historical Society provided the back-story on the disappearance of this family burial ground.  Two small clippings from periodicals contained information from readers.  Under the title "More Mutilated Cemeteries" from an unidentified 1970 newspaper:

    Q.  'I need information on the Rogers-Richwine Cemetery in Jackson Twp...  According to a deed I found, it appears that the cemetery plot was "donated" by the owner [to the county], and not sold with the rest of his land.  During the late 1940s or early 1950s, a county work crew is said to have picked up the stones in the cemetery and piled them as rubble while building a small bridge across a nearby farm creek.  While exploring the grounds, we were able to find two headstones (dated 1844 and 1860) and four footstones.  I suppose numerous other stones are buried in the creek under rock and debris.  (Among persons buried there, our ancestor is probably included: Cuth?/Cuthbert [?] Webb, who died about 1846...)  What can we do to help restore what was said to be a well-populated graveyard?

    A.  'Unfortunately, you are probably fighting a losing battle on this.  The law requires maintenance of cemeteries, but maintenance, we are sorry to say, often includes mowing machines knocking down stones, one by one.  Some well-mowed old cemeteries now contain but a few standing stones from many that stood some years back among the weeds.  [Loose] stones are often neatly stacked at the rear of such a cemetery until someone needed some stepping stones.'

From the 1968 "Madison County Historical Bulletin":

    'On Memorial Day I rode down three miles south of Frankton.  The old cemetery was located about on half mile east of the Boy Scout camp, or a half mile east of the old Bell Rattle School on the north side of the road [CR 500N].  This graveyard has entirely disappeared.  Surely someone is guilty of desecration, for over 40 years ago there were many tombstones.  Now it is farmed.  Seems it was called the Rogers Cemetery.'

It should be remembered that not until 1973 did Indiana have laws protecting pioneer burial grounds from destruction or encroachment by private, business, or government concerns.